Storyhouse Childless Returns For Fifth Year to Chester’s Storyhouse

Storyhouse Childless is a weekend of events to explore living without children. The pioneering programme creates space for honest, nuanced, and empowering conversations about living without children and allows attendees to build community, share stories, raise awareness and make connections.

Since 2019, Storyhouse have brought together hundreds of people through keynotes, panel discussions, performances, and workshops that reflect the full complexity of non-parenthood. Each year, the programme grows in depth, diversity, and reach.

The weekend is for all adults without children, whether that’s through infertility, life circumstances, or perhaps a choice to be childfree, as well as for friends and family who want to find out more about how they can support the non-parents in their families and communities.

Nicola Haigh, Community Manager for Storyhouse says: “Storyhouse Childless is not just an event — it’s a community, a platform, and a growing movement that challenges the dominant narrative around parenthood and creates a space for connection, visibility, and solidarity. This festival now in its fifth year has been co-curated with a volunteer focus group made up of the childless and childfree community.”

The weekend begins with an evening of live music and connection, followed by opening reflections from Dr Dawn Llewellyn, Associate Professor of Religion and Gender at the University of Chester, who will frame the festival’s timely place in conversations about pronatalism, identity, and belonging.

Across the weekend, attendees will experience powerful panel discussions, creative workshops, and performance. Highlights include a candid session on chronic illness and childlessness, a vibrant Creative Power Hour led by artist Claire Beerjeraz, and a new strand of discussion groups shaped by audience feedback, introduced by Elizabeth Harkness of the Other Than Motherhood podcast.

Saturday’s programme also welcomes journalist and broadcaster Bibi Lynch, leading a panel on the stigma around singlehood and non-parenthood, followed by an evening of theatre, comedy and cabaret, featuring Otherhood by Old Bird Theatre, a reading from Robert Nurden’s new play Empty, and a comedy line-up hosted by the TOKEN Collective.

Sunday offers a reflective start with breakfast gatherings and body-mapping sessions, followed by a keynote from TEDx speaker Emily Monsell-Holden on her personal journey as a non-mother. A panel of voices will join her to share diverse stories of navigating a world shaped by parenthood norms. Creative writing and visual arts sessions led by Gayle Letherby and others round out the day.